


trust

by forpeaches (bluecarrot)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Brutality, F/M, I hate tags, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:20:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21589852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/forpeaches
Summary: in ASOIAF, Brienne hauls an injured, uncooperative Jaime to Kings Landing. He lets her be arrested and immediately forgets about her.Good one, Jaime.(a modern AU of something very similar & very different.)
Relationships: Jaime Lannister & Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 45
Kudos: 148





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this will be extremely disjointed and probably not make a whole hell of a lot of  
> sense, because it’s basically me working out some issues with my current novel.
> 
> you’ve been warned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pardon the typos; i spent thirty minutes arguing with the text editor and this is the best i could do.
> 
> written 25-27 November 2019

The guards wouldn’t let her inside.

Of course they wouldn’t, they didn’t know her face or her name or her car: but she hadn’t thought of that and neither (she suspected) had Jaime. She took a deep breath. “Brienne of Tarth, personal security number 34-7268. You’ll want to let me inside. I have Mr Lannister’s son.“

The guard stayed motionless, rifle pointed at her head.

The speaker squawked. It sounded like any drive-through. All the money in the world and they couldn’t get a decent sound system? “Brienne,” she repeated. “I have Jaime. That isn’t a threat or a euphemism, he’s right here — in the back — he’s asleep, I think.”

The meaning of the speech was clear, even if she didn’t understand the words.

“I’m not moving my hands out of view while there’s a gun pointed at me. Send someone down to search if you —“

Noise from behind her, and a very tired, very rumpled man poked his head next to hers. “Hello, Loras. Wonderful to see you again. Buzz us in and get me a fucking maester.”

The box protested again, more respectfully this time.

Jaime said: “Do whatever you like with her. Just get me a maester. Now.”

*

They took her to a dark, small room with no windows and a single fluorescent light flickering above, held trapped in a grid of chicken wire. She was stripped and searched and left alone.

She slept and paced and slept again, wishing she’d never met Jaime Lannister, never heard of Catelyn Stark, never looked out her bedroom window on Tarth and wondered what might be on the other side of those waves.

And time, somehow, passed.

*

The seventy-ninth time she woke up, it was to the sound of her cell door being unlatched. 

She sat up —

— but it was not Jaime, only another man with his height and coloring. His hair was far longer, in loose ringlets, and he walked like a man not much used to walking.

He stopped in front of her. 

“You’re a Lannister?” she said. 

“Loras,” he said, looking somewhat abashed. “You’re the famous Brienne.”

“Not famous. I didn’t do anything —“

“I’ll judge that,” said Loras. “So? Tell me.”

She recognized him now from the guard station. But she was so goddamn tired. “Tell you what.”

“What happened down there. What you did.”

“What — with Jaime?”

“And Renly,” he said: and he looked like his cousin then, all spark catching fire. 

“Renly is dead.”

“I know he’s dead, you stupid cunt. Tell me what you did to him.”

She thought of Jaime, then: Jaime’s eyes still glinting green in the darkness, his free hand curling around her neck. I _need your help._ No. What had he said?

_I call a truce._

_You need trust to have a truce._

_I trust you_ , he’d said. And his hand slipped down to her lap, to find her hand there loose and empty. He wrapped his fingers between hers. _I trust you_ , said Jaime: and pulled her in close for a kiss.

When the Flayed Men came back she was again sitting across the room from him, refusing to meet his eyes.

“Renly,” said Loras. His voice shook.

“A shadow killed him. A shadow with Stannis’ face.”

“Stannis is ten thousand miles from here, or more. You were with him, you killed him, you mutilated my cousin —“

“Jaime, yes. But I had nothing to do with Renly.” 

And that’s all she said, no matter how he yelled and argued and finally wept. He looked so familiar then that she would have confessed, if she’d done anything worth confessing — but all she had done wrong lately was kiss Jaime and want to do it again, and that, she thought, was not the business of anyone else.

“Am I to be killed?” she asked Loras, when he’d finished crying. “Please tell me. And tell me — tell Jaime — tell him —“

Loras stared at her. “If it’s up to me, you’ll be shot tomorrow.” And he left without answering any more of her questions.

*

She dreamt again and again of the church basement, stuffy and silent except for the sound of water hissing through the radiator, the sound of Jaime’s handcuff rattling as he tried to pull himself free.

Bolton’s men beat her and left her there, bleeding on the linoleum, when it was clear Jaime had meant what he said: She didn’t matter to him, she was his jailor. _Send word to my father and you will have whatever you want._

_And the bitch?_

_You can have her, too._

Brienne had hated him then. But the days passed and her bruises healed and at last she woke from a sound sleep to hear Jaime’s sharp hiss of pain. She tore a strip from her shirt and wrapped it around his arm, down near the elbow where it pressed against the steaming radiator and swelled with blisters.

 _You don’t need to do that,_ he’d said.

_I know._

He’d stared at her. _You really aren’t working with them, are you?_

It took every scrap of patience she had not to strangle him with her bare hands. Instead she said for the ten millionth time: _I’m working for Catelyn Stark._ And she turned away again.

And Jaime said: _I call a truce, my lady._

Her sleeping body remembered that conversation and the motion he made to pull her against him and the quick hot twist of desire in her gut, the way he’d caught his breath

and it turned, as dreams will, to darkness. Nighttime. Gasoline. _Wake up. Lannister, wake up. We have to get out of here._

And then the fire came.

*

She sat up in the perpetual light, never dawn and never dusk. Felt her own hands — whole. 

Felt again the panic, kicking at doors until one opened, choking through smoke, thinking _I can’t leave him I can’t I won’t I can’t_

Crawling on her hands and knees, bumping into a forgotten corner, she found what the Flayed Men had not: an axe.

 _Hold steady,_ she said to Jaime. _I’m going to get you out of here._

He shut his eyes.

Alone in her new cell, Brienne cried.

*

The next time the door opened, it really was Jaime.

In the grey grimness, he shone like a new penny. Someone had trimmed his hair and shaved his face; someone had found him new clothes that fit his smaller frame; someone had cleaned and bandaged his wrist, neatening the work done by her clumsy axe-stroke.

She was so relieved to see him that she almost forgave him the cell — and then fury came crashing up behind. He’d forgotten her. He had her locked up in another goddamn basement and he forgot her, and now he remembered — finally —

A bullet in her head. 

She remembered this feeling, the vague flat acceptance of her own death. She hadn’t thought it would come from Jaime.

He eyed her. “You’re dirty.”

“I imagine so. Am I to be cleaned before the execution?”

“You’re also lucky,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “My father is displeased with your recent conduct —“

“Bringing his eldest son home alive isn’t good enough? No one else managed to do that.”

“I think he expected me to be delivered in one piece,” said Jaime.

“He neglected to specify that in the contract.”

“They want to kill you. Leave your body somewhere as a warning.”

She lifted her chin. “I ask that you send word to my father. He shouldn’t — I don’t want him to wonder.”

Jaime’s smile was cold. “We will not send word.”

“Where — when? Now? Not here. I don’t want to die here.”

“Come on,” he said: and she followed.

*

Down one hall and another, up a long flight of steps — “You first,” said Jaime — and another, until they came to a metal door that opened to a bare roof.

Brienne covered her face a moment: the light was too strong. “Gods,” she said, through her fingers. “You can see all of Kings Landing from here. All the way to the sea.”

Jaime was checking the clip in his gun. His voice was distracted. “Lovely, isn’t it? My rooms have a similar view. I thought of that view when I was chained up in that goddamned basement.”

He was coming nearer. She glanced at him and away. “Are you going to make me jump?”

“You’re a very suspicious girl. Have you always been this paranoid?” He took a deep breath and let it out. “You were supposed to get me home.”

“I did.”

“You cut off my hand.”

“I did.”

“My father — you’ll meet him, if you survive, which quite honestly is incentive to jump off the side while you have the chance — my father thinks we should kill you.”

Brienne didn’t answer.

“So we put it to a vote. You look surprised. Does it surprise you more that the vote was my idea? Nevermind. My sister agreed that you should be killed. She does tend toward the dramatic. Kevan said No, Genna said Yes. Loras was too busy wrapping his hair around his finger to make ringlets, he ceded.”

She had forgotten how much Jaime talked.

He went on. “I was really interested in what Tyrion would say. And he said — do you want to guess? Go on. Guess.”

“No,” she said. She didn’t want to guess. She didn’t want more of these fucking games. The fingers of his left hand were curled around the little pistol. Not a large gun, not a lot of power, and Jaime wasn’t left handed: but it would be enough.

“No,” Jaime agreed. “He said the contract was imprecise. Father had an opinion on that, — Father has many opinions — but it came to a tie, and I had the deciding vote. And I said ... what do you think?”

She couldn’t see any of the color of the water, none of the waves and whitecaps. Only sunlight, glittering. “Did you kiss me because you wanted me to help you get out — to convince me to help? Or because it had been so long since you’d ... since ...”

“You kissed _me_.”

“I didn’t!”

“Brienne,” he said: and laughed. She didn’t know what was funny. “You look different here, in the sunlight.”

“Uglier,” she said.

“Different,” he said. “And I don’t want you dead. I want you to work for us.”

She’d imagined a hundred different endings to her story, when she and Jaime were trapped in the basement, and she’d added a hundred more in the cell. This wasn’t one of them. “I work — worked — I’m with the Starks. I work for Catelyn.”

“I’m aware of that.”

She shook her head. “This makes no sense. I can’t just switch loyalties, that isn’t me.”

“You saved my life,” he said. “You kept me from dying in that church. I would not have enjoyed burning alive.”

“To get you home. To do what I promised Catelyn. It wasn’t to save you.”

Jaime ignored this and went on saying what he was saying. “I don’t relish being crippled, you understand. But I appreciate that your options were limited.” He paused for dramatic effect. “And so are yours.”

“Those options being — to be shot, or jump, or work with you.”

“We’d pay you well, if that’s your concern.”

“You know it isn’t.”

Unbidden, she thought of her father. He would never know what happened to her. We won’t send word, Jaime had said: and she believed him.

Her father would tell her to stay alive. Do anything to stay alive. She’d bargained and lied already, hadn’t she? What was one more betrayal?

Sun broke over the edge of a building; it bathed Jaime in light, his shadow stretching long and thin behind him. He looked comfortable, easy-going. Patient.

I trust you, he had told her in the basement, one hand chained behind him. The room was hot, he was sweaty, tired, half-starved; his hair fell lank in his eyes. _I trust you._

_I’m not on your side, Jaime Lannister._

_I know that._

And he’d kissed her hot and slow, lingering over it, his mouth hot even in the overheated little room, his fingers curled around her own.

She saw that look on his face now. “Why did you kiss me?”

“Take the offer. It’s the best you’ll get. The alternatives are going to be unpleasant —“

“ _Jaime_.”

“Bri- _enne_ ,” he mocked. “Tell me yes, and I’ll tell you why.”

“Would I work for your father, or you?”

“You’ll be under me.“ But a muscle jerked on his mouth: a tell.

She shouldn’t be staring at his mouth. “What aren’t you telling me? What else is there?”

He hesitated. “You’d report to me — and to Cersei.” He held up his right wrist, with the missing hand — the other still held the gun. “Don’t bother arguing. I tell you, this is the best you’ll get.” 

“Cersei wants me dead,” said Brienne: and Jaime shrugged. He looked tired, suddenly. He looked familiar. _I trust you_ , he had said, and kissed her ...

“Why did you do it?” she said.

“You agree?”

She nodded.

“Then let’s go.” He turned and started back, tucking the pistol into his waistband.

“Lannister, you goddamn liar — you said you’d tell me—“

“I will,” he said. “The next time you ask. Come on.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne gets a new quest.

She wrote to her father after all. Just a few lines. _I am here, I am alive in Kings Landing. The Lannisters offered me to work for them and I could not refuse_.

All that was true.

The last line should be _I love you_ — or was it _I’m sorry_ —

She couldn’t decide. And not deciding meant she couldn’t finish it, and not finishing meant she couldn’t send it. So it lived in the hollow of her bedframe, between the mattress and the steel, and every night she checked that it was still there.

She checked for hidden eyes in her room, as well, knowing there must be one or dozens: but she didn’t find anything.

The Lannisters gave her food, shelter, training with whatever weapons they had to hand and whatever else she could think of to ask, no matter how esoteric. (“A mace, Brienne? Do you expect to fight someone in a museum exhibit?”) — but it had showed up a few days later.

“A museum exhibit?” she’d asked Jaime, staring, hefting it in her hand. The thing weighed upwards of ten pounds; its spikes were not blunt.

He’d shrugged, and smiled. “You asked.”

She asked for other things, too. A newspaper.

He brought her cigarettes and conversation and a pack of cards. “You know gin rummy?”

Brienne did. She shuffled, since he could not, and dealt the cards. “I do appreciate the upgrade to my cell, but ... when are you going to put me to work?”

He lay his cards in his lap, sorting through them, arranging them, taking his time about it.

What he was really doing was putting off replying to her question. _“Jaime.”_

“Two days.”

“And then what? You forgot to discard.”

He glanced at her through the shock of hair falling down over his face. “We need you to find Sansa Stark.”

Her mouth felt dry. “And when I have her — then what?”

“Bring her here.”

“I can’t let you hurt her.”

“I won’t lay a finger on the girl. Brienne, it’s your turn.”

She played a card. “You can’t pretend to me that the Lannisters are going to be gentle and generous and kind to that child.”

Jaime was inscrutable. She’d seen those eyes in the basement, when he told the men they could have her; she’d seen him  
look at her that way, as she raised the ax to cut him free. “That isn’t your concern. Discard.”

“Jaime —“

“You have two days,” he said. “Make your peace with it.”

  
*

  
The guard (was it Loras?) brought her to meet Cersei, and stood mutely waiting while they spoke.

“Jaime has been to visit you,” said Cersei: and Brienne saw why she was nicknamed _the Queen_.

“Yes.”

“He told you of what we need from you.”

“Yes.”

“You agree to it?”

“Yes,” she said again. _Your majesty_.

Cersei smiled thinly. “You are a terrible liar.”

That stung. “I’m not lying. I never said I approve of it — I don’t approve. But I ...”

“You have no better options?”

That was true. Her life was rapidly dwindling down — she found herself making the least-horrible choice again and again. Gods, the look on Jaime’s face when he saw the ax in her hand, when the room was filling with smoke ... She’d count herself lucky if she could do that much for Sansa Stark. “I agreed,” she said. 

“When Jaime asked.”

She nodded. Wondered again where the cameras were, in her room. In the ceiling? The light? Pointed at the door, surely, but where else? Who watched the streams?

“You love him,” said the queen: so unexpectedly that Brienne laughed aloud.

“Love?!”

“You saved his life.”

“I would have saved anyone.” Almost anyone. That Vargo, now — she thought she could left him to die, and felt quite happy over it. But she didn’t want to think of Vargo. “I don’t even _like_ Jaime. He threatened me — a dozen times or more — he’s rude, pretentious, —“

Cersei looked moderately surprised — if a face that Botoxed could be forced into surprise. “How interesting. That isn’t what he said.”

Brienne could imagine what Jaime had said. But Loras ( _was_ it Loras? she couldn’t see anything past that helm) was stepping forward, separating her from Cersei. The interview was over.

  
*

Returning to her rooms, she somehow wasn't surprised to see someone was waiting for her. “What —"

“Come on,” he said, and like any lapdog she followed.

They were so similar, Jaime and his twin. It was unnerving to see them like this — one after the other — and know she couldn’t trust either one —

But perhaps she did trust Jaime for all that. Because when he lead her down a hallway and held open a door for her to step through, she wasn’t on her guard; when he put a hand to her mouth, she dragged in the breath to gasp, not scream. She didn’t have the alertness to fight back; she didn’t expect it at all.

Some savior she'd be. She thought of her father, thought _Jaime_ , and lashed out, biting at his fingers, trying to yell —

“Stop that,” said Jaime, sounding annoyed even in the dark. “Calm down. No one is _hurting_ you.”

“Is she always like this?” someone else said.

“Yes. Constantly. Brienne, stop fighting and stand still, or we _will_ have to hurt you.”

She made herself stop. Jaime was still holding her. She felt his warmth, smelled his skin -- “Who is _we?”_

“He means himself,” said the unknown, amused. “I’m useless in a fight.”

Jaime said: "You're going to behave?"

She nodded: and he moved away.

For a second she missed him -- but only for a second. “Are all you Lannisters _actually insane?_ Can we stop with the kidnapping and threats? I’m already working for you.”

“You have no idea who you’re working for.”

She strained to see, turning towards the sound of his voice. “And you’re not going to tell me.”

"You can't know, or you'd tell someone else."

"I wouldn't -- "

You’re a shitty liar,” said Jaime, who lied better than anyone she’d ever met. “We can use that to our advantage —"

“ _Whose_ advantage?”

“Jaime, stop talking. You’re making things worse. Miss Tarth,” and the man who spoke must have been crouching, his voice was so low — “I need you to find Sansa Stark.”

“And bring her here, where she’ll be cut to pieces and die screaming. I understood that. I'm not stupid.”

"I need you to take her home to her mother.”

“Why?”

Instead of replying, he switched on the light.

She was in a tiny room — more a closet than anything else. It was entirely empty of anything but a light bulb, hanging above — and Brienne herself — and Jaime — and -- “Is that -- is that _Tyrion?_ There really _is_ a Tyrion?”

There had always been rumors of a third child, but ... 

Jaime said, “I told you what she was like. Didn’t I?”

She understood now why Tyrion wasn’t ever seen in public -- he couldn't hide his disability, and he could not hide that he was a Lannister, looking disturbingly similar to Cersei and Jaime. He had their sharp beauty, their coloring. But she couldn’t see any of the family pride in his face, so easy to find in his siblings; she couldn’t see any of their scorn.

He looked patient and clever and sad. He said: “I don’t want Sansa dead, because she is my wife.”

Then why did Cersei —

Oh. 

_Oh_.

"If she's your wife --"

"Can you do it?"

"Take her to the Starks? I -- yes. Of course. If I can find her."

"You'll find her."

Jaime said to his brother: "So you've said. Meanwhile, I have nothing but your _word_ that this will work —“

Tyrion said: “I know how uncomfortable it must be for you to risk something, little as you’re accustomed to it --”

"When do I leave?"

"Tonight," said Jaime, and 

"Now," said Tyrion.

They looked at each other.

"You know I'm right. If you give Cersei time, she'll --"

Jaime snapped. "I am aware of what Cersei wants. I know her better than you do."

"Arguable."

Brienne could have killed both of them for their noisy nonsense. "Stop bickering. I get it -- Cersei hates Sansa; you want to protect her. What do you need from _me?_ Just to find her and bring her home?"

"It won't be that simple," said Tyrion.

"Obviously."

"Cersei will be unhappy," said Tyrion to his brother, "when she finds out."

"Cersei will be unhappy either way. And father ..." He shrugged.

Brienne said: "What about me?"

Jaime looked at her. "Your job is to come back."

"What if I don't?"

He touched her face, brushing dust or lint or something from her skin, and Brienne swallowed, holding still. "If you don't, I'll come and find you," he said. "Don't forget that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> does Cersei seem like a Botox type? i can't decide.
> 
> *
> 
> this isn't at all what I had planned for this chapter -- insofar as i plan anything -- i didn't even think that Tyrion was around in this universe -- but these JERKS will not BEHAVE


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 10 December 2019.

She was at a gas station outside Kings Landing, a paper map open on the hood of her new (borrowed) truck, when someone came up.

She didn’t notice him until he was nearly on her. He had a face, she thought, made to be ignored. Short and pudgy, looking younger than his years, already apologizing with his shoulders before he opened his mouth to say “Y-you’re Brienne? Brienne T-Tarth? T-Tyrion sent me.”

Brienne let her hand rest at her side. She wouldn’t put it on her gun, not yet. (That soft heart will get you in trouble sometime, said Jaime in her mind. She wished she could shoo him away like a fly.) “Who are you? Why are you here?”

Don’t look at the gas station attendant; don’t look at the cameras. Don’t take your eyes off the kid.

“P-Podrick,” he said. “H-he really did send me, Tyrion I mean.” He had the sense to hold still where he was, and keep his hands motionless.

Even if Tyrion had sent Pod, it didn’t follow that it was to her benefit. “Why didn’t he tell me you were coming?”

“I’m here to h-help.”

“I don’t need help. Fine. You’re here with the Lannisters? Call them.”

“You c-can call —“

“You do it. Call Jaime. Put him on speaker.”

He squeaked something about being forced to talk to the terrifying Jaime Lannister, but did so after a moment.

Jaime answered. "Who is this? How did you get this number?"

Brienne touched her gun, tucked into her waistband; she clicked off the safety.

“Sir, it’s P-Podrick — Podrick Payne —“

“Payne? Why aren’t you with Tyrion?”

“He s-sent m-me to find Brienne —“

“The fuck he did,” said Jaime. “Is she there?”

She let go of the gun, leaned forward, speaking low. “I’m here.”

A pause. “It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. You’ve giving up already?”

“I’m not —"

He was irritated. “Take the kid. He might help. Don’t call me again about this shit. You remember what I said?”

“Yes, but — Jaime —"

Dial tone.

She stared at Podrick. “Do you have any weapons?”

“No. T-Tyrion, he s-said —"

“We’ll get you some. Come on. Do you know the way to the Eyrie? This map is junk. Might as well say Here Be Dragons.”

He shook his head. “If it’s cold, if it s-snows, the roads might close.”

Brienne shifted down, getting on to the highway again. The truck responded far better than it ought to, considering the rust on the frame, the flaking paint. There was an 8-track in the dash, for fuck's sake.

Podrick sat in the passenger seat, looking out the window.

Lights appeared and flickered past: streetlamps, other cars. The sunlight dimmed and lowered and dropped behind the hills. Brienne glanced over at Pod, who hadn't spoken in an hour or more. He was asleep, looking like a bird with its head tucked beneath a wing.

She smiled -- couldn't help herself -- and as she turned back to the road, a car passed them from behind. Its headlamps brightened the interior of the truck cab, a new angle, and flashed on something bright tucked deep into an air vent. A tiny camera, too deep for her fingers to reach and pull out. 

That goddamn Jaime was such a slime.

She pulled over when driving became dangerous and slept in the cab, waking every few minutes (it felt like) to stare at Podrick. He couldn’t be trusted. He was working for the Lannisters. 

As sleep crept in again, Brienne remembered that she was working for them, too.

That’s different, her sleeping mind argued. I’m working for Catelyn. I’m finding Sansa Stark.

Tyrion’s wife —

Catelyn’s daughter —

The glass eye of the spy camera winking at her; Jaime’s green eyes staring steady as she said Smoke, that’s smoke, they’re burning us out and dropped to her knees, crawling away from him, leaving him tied. Tethered.

If she hadn’t found the axe — if she didn’t have the nerve to cut off his hand — would she have left him there to burn alive?

Hold still, he’d said to her, and kissed her so sweet her knees went liquid and her thoughts stopped altogether. I’m not on your side, she’d said.

And he smiled. 

I call a truce, said the eye of the camera, staring. Brienne? Wake up.

“I am awake,” she said.

  
They reached the base of the mountains before noon, stopping twice for coffee (Brienne) and a frosted chocolate donut (Podrick).

“Don’t you eat?” he asked.

“Wipe your fingers,” she said. When had she become a mother?

By early afternoon, the clear skies had turned to sleet and freezing rain, pinging the windshield and layering the mirrors with thick, impenetrable swirls of ice. The road was passible, salted and sanded, but — 

“This looks bad,” said Pod. He was gripping the door as if it would open and send him out alone, defenseless, among the wargs and Others.

“There’s nowhere to go.”

“We could run off the road. We could pull off.”

“We’d freeze,” said Brienne. She didn’t glance at the camera, didn’t suggest they call Jaime. So he can lift us off the mountain on a helicopter? “Tell me who we are.”

“Brother and sister, visiting from — um —“

“Pennytree.”

“Yeah. We have family in the Eyrie.”

“Inside the Eyrie?”

He squirmed. “The town below.”

“What’s the town called? Who is our family? What are our names?”

  
“Jeyne,” said Brienne. “And my brother Greig. I did not realize the weather was this bad, so early.”

It didn’t used to be like this, she was told. Seems the winters were worse every year. Who’s you come to see again?

“Our aunt and uncle, and cousins. Aunt Joanna was my mother’s sister, you know. Her daughter looks just like my mother did as a girl. Red hair — blue eyes —“

No one like that was around here. Blank stares. 

Brienne tried to relax. “Maybe she dyed it. I haven’t seen them since our mother ...” She let her voice trail off. “Last summer. And I haven’t even been on the webs, not really. I should have. But Greig is so young, it’s all I can do ...”

Yes, they said. It’s hard to raise boys. Sympathy, kind words, and they didn’t seem to be lying.

None of that got her closer to Sansa.

  
She should have gotten two hotel rooms but she had not, she hadn’t been thinking; she’d only been glad to have a roof and a meal and be out of the damned weather.

Now Podrick lay a few feet away on his own narrow twin bed, snoring lightly.

Brienne rolled over and Jaime was there.

“Don’t look so surprised,” he said into her skin. His hand skimmed over her waist, down her hip. “I told you I’d find you.”

I haven’t given up, she tried to say. I’m still looking.

His knee went between her legs and she blushed, gasped, pushed him away. No.

He moved to straddle her then, weight pinning her down. “Is anyone else strong enough to do this?” he said. “I’m strong enough.”

Don’t, she told him, Please don’t, and because she said No, he did not— he only looked at her with the steady green light of his eyes.

“Have you changed your mind?” he said

and then she knew it was a dream, and woke up.

She felt Jaime’s hand on her face; she felt his mouth on hers, felt the hot ache of wanting him.

Podrick snored gently.

Brienne turned her face into the cool, dry pillowcase and wished again she’d gotten two rooms.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which we skip over a scene that i don’t want to write, and land in the middle of “angsty hets, kissing each other”.
> 
> my apologies for all of this. it’s a mess of a fic and it’s not going to improve because i’m putting my brain into finishing my current novel. i has no brain left to plot :(

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 11 December 2019, at 2am, when i was falling asleep.

He tossed the keys on a table and went back in the hallway to collect Brienne. She was boneless, brainless. She couldn’t move. There was blood on her shirt — it was on her hands — in her hair --

Jaime was watching her, eyes narrowed and considering. “Alright,” he said. “Come here.”

And when she didn’t move, he pulled her by the hand into the narrow bathroom. He turned on the shower and turned to her again. “Strip,” he said. “Or I’ll do it for you.”

No doubt he would. But her fingers were shaking, she couldn’t manage the buttons on her shirt, she couldn’t —

He pulled her under the water, stepping inside too. They were both fully clothed.

Red and pink streaks on Jaime’s face; red and pink smudges on his hands. It swirled off them and went down the drain. He looked beyond beautiful — he looked alien, foreign, mad — like some god of war and death.

She said: “You look like shit.” Her throat hurt. Her voice was rough and hoarse, not entirely from the screaming. She couldn’t stop seeing that his shirt had soaked through, it was plastered to his body. So was hers; she felt it sticking to her. Heavy. Thick. She wanted it off.

“You have blood in your hair,” he said. “Is it yours?”

Some of it was. She shook her head.

“Wash it out,” said Jaime: so she did. And when she was done that she washed his, too, remembering how difficult it had been to do this for herself the summer she’d sprained her wrist, telling herself it was only kindness or sympathy that made her do it, knowing that was a lie. She simply wanted to touch him.

She was rinsing out the conditioner, keeping her eyes steadily fixed on her work, when she felt his hand at her throat. Not in violence.

“What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer.

Each button took longer than it ought to take — each one reluctant to pass through the heavy, swollen buttonhole — and her arms stuck in the sleeves, the fabric translucent on her skin. The trousers were worse, and (oh god) she’d worn her old underpants with the worn-out elastic. 

Humiliating. 

Any minute now he’d make some joke about her not wearing a bra. Any moment he’d say something. Why bother, he’d say. Might as well be turned around.

He said nothing.

Brienne said: “I should — I can — if you lift your arms.” And that was difficult, too, but he cooperated and he didn’t make fun of her and he didn’t laugh. He didn’t say a goddamn word, and she would have run away if he’d spoken or even looked wrong, but —

Water streaked down them both.

She had to speak. She was naked with a naked man and she had to speak. “Jaime —“

“You’ve blood on your back,” he said. “I’ll wash it off.”

“I can do it.”

“I’ll wash it,” he said again: and smiled. His mouth was in a mocking twist, but the barb was not directed at her. “What harm can a one-handed man do?”

So.

The soap slid across the back of her neck, over her shoulders and spine in narrow, focused circles. It skimmed down over her waist and on her hips, reaching around to her front — toying with a nipple, holding her as she started.

The soap fell. His hand stayed.

Neither one of them moved — 

And then the hot water began ebbing away.

Jaime cleared his throat. “I’ll get out first. You don’t need to — I’ll give you time.”

  
T-shirt. Underpants. 

Brienne felt ridiculous. Jaime didn't want her. He didn't. Probably she imagined it, probably he responded like that for everyone — any body that close to him —

She towel-dried her hair and went out into the larger room.

He was sitting on the bed, he hadn’t bothered to dress — but the only part that really looked naked was his wrist. He said, staring at it, sounding furious: “Do you want to fuck?”

She stuttered. “You make it sound so romantic.”

“I want to be inside you,” he said. “I want to make you moan, and clench down, and yell. I want my mouth on every inch of your body. I want you to dig your goddamn nails down my back and I want you to scar me, Brienne. — Is that the sort of romance you‘re looking for?”

“I killed him. He trusted me and I killed him. It’s my fault.”

“It isn't your fault, you idiot girl. Stop talking like that. Why are you _crying?_ None of this is worth crying over."

"Podrick is dead. I have his blood on my hands. In my hair."

"Not anymore," said Jaime. “You washed it out.”

He was right. She sat down next to him and tried to calm her breath.

"I have to go back to my sister in the morning,” said Jaime. “ _We_ have to go back. She’ll be angry about the Stark girl. With you, and with me. Furious. She’ll want to kill you herself. I need to figure out a lie that will explain all this — including the marks you leave on me. And the marks I’ll leave on you.” His eyes were dark.

Brienne tried to remember that she hated him. “Why would she — how would she —"

“She’ll have you searched again. I can’t stop it, Brienne. Not without making everything far worse.”

“Another cell? Another _basement?”_ Her voice shook.

He stared at her. “Did they rape you? The guards.”

“No.”

“I’ll burn them alive if they hurt you.”

“ _No._ Jaime — I can’t — your family — this _thing_ with you — it’s too much for me. Give me a sword or a gun and I can fight, I’ll fight anyone, but the way your family is — I can't fight that. I don't know how to push back against that sort of thing."

“So fuck me,” he said. “Forget about it for an hour or two.”

Her face heated. “I’m not like that. I’m not like you.”

“You are,” he said. “You only have to decide if you’ll accept it — or if you’ll run away. And you don't get to run away, Brienne. That isn't a choice you have. Catelyn Stark took away that option when she told you to help her, she promised you that you'd be safe. She told you nice things and you believed her."

 _You're a brave girl,_ she'd said to Brienne. _Brave, and strong. I wish my daughters were like you._

Jaime said: "The Starks are for the Starks. They always have been. Did they give you weapons? Did they even tell you who I am?" He put a hand on her hip, hooking a finger into the waistband of her underwear. His eyes were so dark. "I can smell you, wench."

"I don't want you burning anyone for me. If I want someone killed, I'll do it myself."

"Can you? Have you done it before?"

"I can do what I need to do, Jaime Lannister." But she pushed him back when he tried to kiss her, suddenly not sure. "You'll get me out of the cell?"

“It might take a while. You’ll have to be patient.” And Jaime, who was never patient, pulled the shirt over her head.

*

She had thought she knew what to expect from the Lannisters: but the the second time was worse. The hands on her body; the questions; the instruments. It seemed to last forever. She stared at the ceiling, the cold blue fluorescent light, and wondered when she would see the sun again.

She was just climbing off the table, pulling up the gown around her shoulders, when Cersei came in.

“So?” said the queen.

“She’s had intercourse recently. Within the last forty-eight hours.”

Brienne flushed: but it didn’t matter. No one was looking at her.

“With whom?”

“There’s no way to ... They used a condom. Traces of spermicide, but ...”

“Who was it?” said Cersei, looking at Brienne for the first time.

“You killed him,” said Brienne. 

*

When she began to forget there was anything but cinderblocks and metal bars and slow-flickering fluorescence, Jaime came.

Brienne stood up slowly. Her bones hurt. “Why are you here?”

He said, speaking slow: “I’ve been sent to question you.”

Her mouth went dry. 

He said: “There’s a room nearby with nothing in it. No cameras, no microphones. No noise in or out. Only a light above and a drain in the floor. And a few hooks in the walls. Do you know what happens in rooms like that?”

“Please don’t,” she said. “Please.”

“You told me once that you aren’t on my side. Is that still true?”

She didn’t know what answer he wanted.

“Come on,” said Jaime. 

So she did.

*

  
It was hot, in the room. She hadn’t expected that. She rubbed her arms.

“Talk to me a minute — Brienne, are you — pay attention. Talk. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.”

“Is anyone hurting you?”

“I’m in a cell.”

He took her chin in his hand. “I need you to focus. Are you being hurt? Has anyone — hurt you? Cersei hasn’t ... you haven’t been here before?”

“Here?”

“This room. A room like this one. Where there aren't any cameras.”

“I've never been here. Only with you. How — how long have I — how long?”

“Not long. A bit over two weeks.”

She nodded. Two weeks. It felt like two years. “I need to get out.”

“I told you to be patient.”

“I can’t go back there. Jaime, please.”

“It’s the best you’ll get for a while. Brienne. Stop looking at the corner. Brienne? Listen to me. Look at me. Do you trust me? I need you to trust me a while longer."

"I want to leave."

"It will be over soon."

"You’re letting me go?”

“I’m sorry,” he said: and hit her in the face.

She went down hard, curling up instinctively to protect her stomach, and he kicked her with the side of his boot, striking her arms and thighs, landing a particularly precise one on her jaw. Stars glittered in her skull, swelling and fading with her heartbeat. She tried to crawl away and hit a wall and stopped, falling again, going into the whiteness.

Someone said her name. Calling for her. “Brienne?”

 _Jaime?_ she thought. She knew Jaime; he was the closest of the stars.

“Brienne, open your eyes and look at me. Can you look at me? Can you speak? Is anything much broken? Move your hand off your nose. Let me see.”

She sat upright, spitting blood down her front. “I hate you,” she said. "Don't touch me."

He looked — relieved. “You’re only a bit uglier than usual.”

“Piss off.” Her mouth was so swollen, it came out in a lisp: _Pith off._ She sounded like a drunk. She sounded like Hoat.

He made her walk back to her cell, stumbling and tripping into the walls along the way. Her legs didn’t seem to want to work — or her arms — or her mind. Jaime had hit her. He 

He pushed her into the cell and struck her again across the face, a backhanded slap that left her ears ringing and brought water to her eyes. “If I have to come back, it’ll be worse,” he said. “Much worse. You don’t want me to come back. You don't want my sister to come. Do you understand me?”

She understood.

*

He didn't come back. 

No one did.

In her cell, Brienne obsessively checked on the bruises that Jaime had left behind. They faded slow and disappeared, and she mourned it. They had been proof of something, she thought.

She had been held; she had been wanted. She'd been hurt.

At the very least, the way they turned to yellow and green meant that time had passed.

Now she had nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in ASOIAF, Brienne is required to submit to a virginity test. Jaime mentions it and then it never comes up again, which makes me suspect that I have a rather different reaction to forced gynecological exams than GRRM does.  
> i think this is one of those things GRRM wrote and forgot about -- no hate for George here; i've forgotten far more important things in my books -- but it’s ... interesting.
> 
> Nota bene that actual virginity tests don’t really exist, because bodies don’t work like that, and wtf even is virginity.   
> of course, a total lack of scientific backing does not stop people from claiming to be able to look in a hoo-hah and see if it’s ever had something in it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a somewhat optimistic conclusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 12 december 2019, in goddamn Disney of all places

Jaime’s rooms were not what she expected.

They were small, for one thing, and sparsely furnished: the main room had only a table, an armchair, a book. Even the walls were white and bare, except a small, ornamental frame hung over the door, apparently framing nothing. 

She stared at it.

“The camera,” said Jaime. “Recently installed. They’re keeping watch over all my bad behavior. No audio, fortunately, but I’m sure Cersei is watching the stream right now on a very brief delay. Well. So. The bathroom is there,” pointing, “and the other side is the bedroom. I’ll be here.”

The shower was steaming hot, and his shampoo smelled like honey. She washed her body once and then again, careful over the sore spots, holding her mind neat and even.

Jaime was sitting outside the door.He wasn’t going to hurt her. He isn’t going to hurt me, she told herself. He isn’t.

_You need to trust me a little longer,_ he’d said, and _Catelyn lied._

I dreamt of you.

*

When she opened the door he was asleep in the chair, curled up with his feet on the cushion and his empty wrist tucked in his lap. Jaime.

The electronic eye was watching them. (Whose eye?)

She went barefoot into the bedroom, leaving the door open, crawled between the sheets, and fell heavily asleep.

*

She woke. The room was blank, sun coming though a heavily-filtered airshaft. 

She was alone. 

She stood, wrapping the sheet around her like a shroud. “Jaime?”

He was there, sitting, staring into nothing. He saw her and flushed a little. “I brought fresh clothes. They’re by the door. I didn’t want ...”

“I want to show you something,” she said.

*

His mouth felt like rain, like seafoam; he left salt where he’d been. “I want this,” he kept saying. “Brienne, I want you.” And he tasted of salt in her mouth; he clenched his hand in her hair.

She wanted him. He’d never be cut free from his family, he wouldn’t take an axe to that and leave part of himself behind. Not even if the room was burning; not even if the roof fell in. 

It didn’t matter. He reached for her like she was light. He had kissed her in the basement, in that dark place; he filled her with light. She’d follow him to her grave.

Do you trust me? he’d said, and smiled.

_You don’t want to meet my father. You’d do better to go over the side ..._

I’ll come back, he’d told her, and that was what she remembered when the world was only cinderblock walls, a flickering fluorescence, a door that did not open. Jaime would come back. He’d promised.

She had said it to him — I’ll come back for you — while the room filled with smoke. And she had returned with a hatchet and a decision and he shut his eyes and let her do it.

_Trust me_ , he had said: and then he beat her, making sure it was caught by the cameras.

She wrapped her ankles behind him and bit the meat of his shoulder.

*

“It’s a .38. You know how to use it?”

She checked the safety, the clip, and put it down.

“Good,” he said. “Knife — sawtooth on one side, smooth on the other —“

“No mace? No morningstar?”

He didn’t smile. “Tell me what you’re going to do.”

Yes. Alright. “My job is to get Sansa home.” And she’d already failed it. Twice. “And if she’s with the Hound ...”

He was buckling on some belt around her waist, clumsy as he was now, but still checking it for proper fit. “If she’s with the Hound, you will cut your losses and keep yourself safe. He is Cersei’s pet, and she wants you dead. Ideally,” adjusting the tension, “she would have you beaten again, first. Tortured, raped and mutilated, until you tell her what she wants to hear. But she would settle for dead.”

“Your sister really is a lovely person.”

He leaned back on his heels to look at her. “Meaning what?”

“Meaning ...” It was hard to meet his eyes. “How can you care for her? For any of them?”

“How can I care for my family? _I’m_ _one of them._ Do you think Catelyn Stark — nevermind. We don’t have time for this. Where is your knife?” 

She touched her leg.

“Gun?”

On her hip.

“Garrotte? Slingshot? Throwing knives? How do you throw someone off who’s got an arm around you from behind?”

She stared at him. “If you were the man you claim to be, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I certainly wouldn’t be heading out with enough Lannister-owned weapons to arm a small country.”

Jaime checked a sight that he had already checked. “I am willing to give Cersei her way in many things. This is not one of them. You will get that girl back to her family.”

“And then what?”

He didn’t answer.

“Why did you kiss me? You said that if I asked again, you’d tell me.”

He didn’t answer. 

“They’ll know I was here, Jaime. They’ll know you let me go.”

He answered slow. “They know you cut off my hand. They know that I — interrogated you. They’ll draw the conclusions they need to draw.”

She really, really hated his family. “They know I spent the night in your bed after you ... after we were in that room. The one without windows. What is the right conclusion to draw from that?”

He was kneeling on the floor in front of her, wearing the customary soft black. He didn’t answer.

She’d had his hips between her thighs, her hands on his body. I’ll come back for you, she had told him. Do you trust me?

“Jaime?”

“If you find Sansa,” he said, “she’ll have been beaten.”

“I know.”

“She’ll have been raped. Many times, in many ways, by many men. Do you know what that looks like, afterwards? ... She won’t be like the girl you knew. Maybe she’ll be pregnant, or injured in some visible way. Maybe her own family won’t know her. Maybe they won’t want her back.”

“They’re her family,” said Brienne. “They’ll want her back.”

He spoke to the place his hand used to be. “You saved me because you believe that. I am sending you to find her because you believe that.” He stood up. “My family thinks that you were ... that the Mummers —“

“Yes.”

“They think I was a part of it. That’s why you hurt me, and you brought me back here for the reward. They think we have hurt you often enough, badly enough, that you come to me when I snap my fingers. They know how to do that to people. Like a kicked dog still comes to its master. Well,” he said. “I can’t snap with my left hand anyway.”

She felt sick. “They said that to you?” 

“Brienne,” he said. “They don’t need to say it. — Do you have everything? Tell me again, quickly. This is taking far too long.”

She ran down the list dully, touching each weapon as she spoke its name. She said at the end: “I didn’t take your hand for revenge.”

“You need to leave.”

“I couldn’t see you there, choking on the smoke —“

“I know that. You don’t have to waste time on telling me how moral you are, it’s been painfully obvious from the start. Take your bag and go.”

“You don’t understand. If Hoat were chained to that radiator I would have left him there to burn alive. I didn’t save you because you’re human, or a Lannister, or because you’re beautiful. I did it because —“ She stopped. 

I don’t want to live in a world without you somewhere in it, she wanted to say: but that felt stupid and childish.

He stared at her a moment. “When you find that Stark girl and take her to her family, I never want to see you again. Do you understand? Change your name and change your hair. Get plastic surgery and a desk job somewhere. _I don’t want to see you anymore.”_

Brienne paused, with her hand on the door. The cameras were watching; the cameras watched everything. But they didn’t have ears. What he said was meant for her.

She said: “I’ll come back for you. I’m not leaving you behind.”

And then she ran out of the house and into the night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for @treadcareful, who wanted it? or asked for it at least


End file.
